Why wait for the major parties to replace the system that keeps them in power? Why shouldn’t the people vote for a third party that truly strives to represent their views? Just because the major parties say they can’t, tie things up in the courts, and make up some bullshit to justify it? Why should the people remain committed to a system that sells them out to the highest bidder and erodes their rights no matter who is in power?

How do you know a progressive third party couldn’t also sway many Republican voters just as it does Democrat voters, by revealing just how corrupt and ineffective both major parties are, teaching the people how the other parties’ answers will fail them and have failed them in the past, and making an honest effort to stand up for working class interests?

You can rationalize it however you want to, it’s undemocratic and it means the people do not get to choose who they vote for.

It wasn’t just 2016. They told everyone to drop just before the primary in 2020 so Biden could run, who then only won because people were motivated to get Trump out. Then in 2024 they didn’t even have a primary, ignored protest “uncommitted” votes and pretended everything including the economy was booming, and used the same exact campaign manager for Kamala that ran Hliary’s campaign into the ground. Saying they made “reforms” is just complete bullshit to make you feel like they are responsive to the will of the people, and I can’t believe anyone falls for it.

The rest of that is just more drivel, it’s simply the most successful way the Democrats have been able to justify their anti-democratic actions and rhetoric. Candidates are electable if the people vote for them and, even if it does “split the ticket” (it doesn’t), more candidates allows more competing narratives to get out there and changes what discussions are taking place across election season. When the results come back, those results tell the major parties (and the people) what motivated the people to vote, so they can meet the people where they are and be held accountable when they refuse to. If there are no progressive candidates getting a significant number of votes, they take it as a message to move right and capture that audience instead.

If the Republicans and Democrats can’t get the people off their couches, why don’t they let someone else give it a try?

The wealthy. The DNC very publicly screwed over Bernie two elections in a row and fights to stop other parties like the PSL from getting universal ballot access

Yeah idk if I just watched most of my friends and family drop dead from starvation, I don’t think I’d want to go on living either.

Listen, I really don’t have the energy to debate you. “enable” and “cause” are two entirely different words.

Not what I said. Cars and suburbia certainly enable that, however.

What if we built more homes within a few hundred feet of a public transport stop and built societies where we don’t all hate each other and can’t stand to spend more than a few hours in the same building with people that aren’t in our direct household?

How convenient it is then, that local transportation is also a thing that exists.

Edit: not sure if I was blocked or if it’s just an error… but here’s my reply for anyone that isn’t so sensitive to being challenged on their view of the world

There you go again proving that you are both uncurious and uncreative in using technology as it already exists today.

That is also very obviously not what I am talking about, nor is it where the vast majority of people in the US who use cars, are living. but good for you. The only moral car ownership is MY car ownership, and the two can’t possibly exist alongside each other, therefore shut up about public transportation we can’t have it sorry.

[email protected]

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Trains. The answer is trains. Just because you are uncreative in using technology as it exists today does not mean that we have to go back to the stone age to find a low-emissions and safe means of transportation.

they’d find some clever way of putting it all in some kind of “company trust” or something, so they don’t have it as an individual.

That’s fine, as long as there’s legal stipulations as to how that money can be spent, similar to campaign finance laws. That kind of money should go back into the company to the benefit of both the workers (via continued employment and fair compensation) and the consumers that support the company (via the quality of the company’s product). It should not go to any individual executive to pocket and walk away with.

You’re not desperate enough for them to reveal themselves to you yet

I don’t know if you realize this but most Americans do not live in the lands that american weapons destroy and do not know the first thing about what goes on in those places, other than what their media tells them.

If you want to try something else, Burt’s bees has a healing ointment for babies that is shea butter based instead of petroleum. Never actually used it on a baby myself lol but it worked wonders for me on my scalp (I have curly biracial hair and I’m picky about what goes in it) and scaly winter hands!

It wasn’t about appealing to us, it was about appealing to the common American voter. Democrats failed to do either.

It’s only surprising if you don’t understand why they voted for Trump

Edit for the people asking: it’s because the democrats didn’t present solutions for our economy. Regular Americans care whether they can put food on the table. An insurance CEO has a lot to do with that. They know healthcare is broken. They know about income inequality and the record corporate profits. Neither party has presented solutions to fix it, but the right wing is always willing to make up bullshit and look for scapegoats about whatever grievance will energize their base.

People are hurting right now, many of them blame Biden. Kamala promised to do more of the same, and if she promised solutions then they were lighter versions of what Trump promised. This not only legitimized Trump’s positions at the national level but made the Democrats look incompetent for going back on their previous stances.

As many of us know; there are real solutions, which she was not willing to vouch for; and there are ways to combat Trump’s rhetoric, which she was only willing to do in the most extreme cases but not at the fundamental level. This very predictably depressed her base. She was wholly unwilling to even pretend to champion their interests.

That’s it. It’s not quippy, but it’s literally that simple. Stop seeing the worst in people and being uncurious just because your team lost. You aren’t going to beat Republicans by acting like Republicans.

Rape isn’t the only way to betray someone’s trust.

Kamala had every chance to appeal to those voters, define herself as a candidate, and provide answers for our economy, which at the end of the day is the one thing that really matters to voters. Instead, she pretended everything was fine, adopted narratives from the right and allowed them to posture like they have all the solutions, so she could look like an incompetent and feckless alternative to Republicans for people that were never going to vote for a Democrat anyways.

As a result, she very predictably failed to mobilize her own base. That is not the fault of the american public, and all of you scratched liberal vote shaming “democracy protectors” were never going outflank such an abysmal national campaign.

The Democrats are okay with bleeding voters and losing elections to fascists if the alternative is to challenge the power of capital, and the time has come to reckon with the fact that they are nothing but another obstacle in the fight for the people of this country.

You might actually look into how long that was taught and pervaded into medical attitudes, how little women’s anatomy has been studied compared to men’s, and assumptions made about care for black people and women compared to white people and men, respectively, before making comments like this.

I don’t have the time to look it up for you, but I will recommend the book Bonk by Mary Roach for the anatomy stuff. You will be very surprised.

The fact that she eventually needed the social security checks shows that it was in her natural self interest for the system to exist and for her to pay into it. A safety net, whether or not you will ever personally use it, is something that is good for society overall and serves everyone’s self-interest by being there to catch one when they fall.

If you’re walking a high-wire, it is in your rational self interest to use a harness. Even if it costs money to ensure everyone gets a harness, and suppose you even have a high enough “skill” that you never actually get to use yours; a world that you never have to see anyone fall to their bloody death or worry about your own death is certainly better than the brutal alternative for the amount you pay into the harness.

If you go to a festival and there are paramedics on standby, just in case; the paramedics have to get paid even if nobody ends up needing them, but they are there because the chances are high enough that somebody could get hurt and the response will be much more efficient with better outcomes if travel time to the venue isn’t a factor. Nobody plans to get hurt, but everyone pays into it through the ticket price. It is in everyone’s self-interest to have them there. If you follow Randian philosophy, it is only in your interest if you happen to be the one that gets hurt, but this is entirely unpredictable.

She’s a hypocrite, because she herself is not able to fairly assess her own natural self-interest but her philosophy expects everyone else to be able to do so.

Are you new here (to this planet, I mean) that you think law determines truth? People get fired for illegal reasons all the time, why are you so convinced that something so “cartoonishly evil” could not happen? A rule just existing in a book somewhere isn’t some mystical rune that curses every business owner to act within its limits.

He’s a teenager at the time. What’s he gonna do, sue them? Call the police, drop a complaint form to the NLRB? Lol.

Even assuming he (and the business owner) knew his rights at the time, he has no way to personally enforce them without some strong organization (union) sticking its neck out to back him. In most cases, especially those under at-will employment, the employer doesn’t even have to give a reason to fire someone, which is already a mountain of plausible deniability in the employer’s favor.

Of course without that, there’s all sorts of bullshit reasons the business owner can make up; just as you’ve done here; to “prove” their side, that will confirm the same biases you’ve so clearly put on display for us without even knowing the guy.